The Beginning Farmer

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Crooked Gap Farm has come a long ways in the roughly 12 years of it’s existence! Sometimes I forget how far we have come from an empty 40 acre parcel in the middle of Iowa, but when I stop and take a look at it all I am very thankful! That doesn’t mean that I have everything where it needs to be or that I’m ready to sit back and watch the farm roll along.

There are a lot of projects that are needed on the farm these days. Repair projects, building projects, upgrading projects, and plenty of cleaning projects! But, I have come up with three that have been at the forefront of my mind lately

1. Get the Walk-in Freezer up and running!
2. Building a “Farrowing Greenhouse”!
3. Rehab, Rejuvenate, Replace our Sheep Flock!

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Don’t forget you can find us in all of the places, most of all on YouTube (again)!

The Beginning Farmer YouTube Channel

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Let’s talk about chickens! We’ve raised meat chickens off and on for about 10 years now, and it has never really been our strong suit. But, the demand is there and I would really like to increase our meat chicken production … like really increase it!

There is one problem though, well actually three problems. First of all we have settled on the Freedom Ranger breed for our meat chickens (although I’m open for suggestions because it still isn’t my favorite ever). Secondly, I am totally committed to the “day range” system of raising the birds, but I’m not committed to a structure. And finally, processing is somewhat of a bottle neck for us. There is only one official processor in the state and we are pretty much all in on needing official processing!

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Don’t forget you can find us in all of the places, most of all on YouTube (again)!

The Beginning Farmer YouTube Channel

The Beginning Farmer Instagram

The Beginning Farmer Facebook

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Hello Beginning Farmer Friends! We are back and better than ever. Well I’m not sure about better than ever, but we are back and I am getting pretty excited about being back (even though it is one episode)! I am excited to be able to “chat” about farming again, and share the happenings of Crooked Gap Farm and our plans for the future.

In this episode I end up talking about what our farm marketing world has looked at during the current pandemic of 2020. Sales have been good (I think for many protein farmers that has been true), but along with increased sales and demand there have been plenty of challenges. In the end I do think we are positioning ourselves in a good way for 2021 and beyond.

Don’t forget you can find us in all of the places, most of all on YouTube (again)!

The Beginning Farmer YouTube Channel

The Beginning Farmer Instagram

The Beginning Farmer Facebook

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In a time of unknown, I sit down and do what is needed: I have fun. Today I talk with my oldest son, Caleb, about his interests on the farm and where he goes and is wanting to go with them. He shares what his biggest interest on the farm is and what he does with it. With plenty of fun and laughter, tractors, a Hard Lesson Learned, and even rockets, this is sure to be a fun episode that you can’t miss!

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I hope you all are doing well out there as we deal with a world that seems to be changing by the moment. Maybe in the future I’ll be able to take some time to talk about how our farm is adjusting through this pandemic.

I am going to ignore the elephant in the room (this episode is being released during the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic) and attempt to pick-up where I left off about one year ago! On the last episode of The Beginning Farmer Show, that sounds like something you would hear at the beginning of a soap opera, I had outlined the equipment and infrastructure that we had accumulated on the farm. What I was realizing was that maybe the equipment I had wasn’t “right-sized” to where our farm was at the moment. The big question that was discussed though was, what are we going to do in terms of the hay operation.

Well, much of the hay operation discussion changed in the weeks following the release of that last episode because I ended up selling some small square bale equipment, picking up more hay ground, and making more hay than I had even planned in 2019. Moving forward in 2020 we are expanding even more in the hay side of things and working to add it as a component of our over all farm business.

There are plenty of other things that have happened on the farm in the past 12 months, but the biggest thing had to be our return to the Downtown Des Moines Farmers’ Market. This was something that popped up on our radar somewhat out of nowhere and in the end it seems like it was a good thing!

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Now that you know the large collection of things that we have on the farm I want to share some of my thoughts on what needs to head down the road, what needs to be added, and where I am the most confused! It has become obvious to me that one of the tractors needs to go, and in a perfect world it needs to be replaced by a skid loader that would be able to perform quite a few important tasks on the farm. Also, an addition to the shed is something that is at the top of the list once we can get the money together and the details figured out.

The biggest question facing the farm at this moment though is what are we going to do about the hay operation. Or maybe I should say the “hay dabbling” because it hardly seems big enough to be classified as an operation. I can see the benefits that it has, but I’m wondering if those benefits outweigh the negatives. What do you think?

If you do make your way over to this post though I would love to hear what you think about the equipment and infrastructure our farm has accumulated over the past ten years. Do you have any advice on what probably doesn’t need to be on our farm? Do you think the hay business is something that we should continue to pursue? Why in the world do I have so many tractors on such a small farm?

Thank you so much for listening and I hope that you join in the conversation!

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I’m just going to be completely honest here. I have forgotten most of what it takes to post a podcast episode since it has been such a long time since I have regularly released episodes! With that in mind these “show notes” are really just going to be a link to the show if you’d like to listen on-line or share your thoughts on the Crooked Gap Farm Inventory that I detailed in this episode.

If you do make your way over to this post though I would love to hear what you think about the equipment and infrastructure our farm has accumulated over the past ten years. Do you have any advice on what probably doesn’t need to be on our farm? Do you think the hay business is something that we should continue to pursue? Why in the world do I have so many tractors on such a small farm?

Thank you so much for listening and I hope that you join in the conversation!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Hey there! This is a BRAND NEW EPISODE of “The Beginning Farmer Show”!!! I’m not sure when the next one will be, but for now this one is here and I’m looking for direction when it comes to the show. If you have any good leads or ideas of farmers that you would like to hear on the show please let me know by clicking the link below and reaching out through the Facebook page.

Check out The Beginning Farmer Show on Facebook!

As always, I want to thank you so much for listening and supporting the show with your encouragement and reviews on iTunes! I am continually working to produce a better show, and I’m thankful for all of the listeners sticking with me as I learn.

If you do enjoy the show, don’t forget that you can subscribe on iTunes and leave a five star rating and review (by clicking the link). If you are an Android phone user you can also subscribe on the free Stitcher App. It is so very encouraging to know that people are listening and enjoying the show!

I would love to hear your questions, show ideas, or comments about the show. Feel free to shoot me an e-mail! As always you can follow along with “The Beginning Farmer” and Crooked Gap Farm by checking out these links …

• • Crooked Gap Farm

• • Crooked Gap Farm on Facebook

• • Crooked Gap Farm on Twitter

If you’ve ever listened to an episode of The Beginning Farmer Show (that’s the podcast) you’ll know that I have a lot of hard lessons learned along this farming journey. In fact I had so many that during the almost 150 episode run of the show I featured one every week! I have broken tractors, lost animals, had freezer breakdowns, created more work for myself, and so much more. To be completely honest those things can really make you question what you are doing on the farm!

The latest breakdown of note on the farm (besides the tiller that seems to be a goner) are the leaf springs on the farm truck (aka “Ethan’s mode of transportation”). Once pieces started falling out on the road I knew that it needed to be taken care of. Needless to say, taking care of something like leaf springs on a nearly 20 year old truck with 337,000 miles on it ends up exposing more issues … as in we need a new truck box/flat bed! Those things that may technically just be a “part of life” can get you down when they seem to pile up on the farm!

There are somethings that keep me going though when it comes to the typical ups and downs of farm life … actually I should say there are a lot of people that keep me going! Recently I was test driving a used Suburban owned by a gentleman who happened to be a pig farmer as well. Of course the conversation quickly drifted away from the ins and outs of that particular Suburban and onto the topic of pigs, more specifically raising pigs.

You see, I will probably raise and finish somewhere are 150-175 pigs this year and the gentleman I was talking to will probably do somewhere between 8,000 and 10,000!!! He talked about why he loved his system of buildings, computer controlled water/feed systems, ventilation computers, manure collection, and even the fact that people take away his manure for free and then spread it on their fields. Of course there were a lot of differences in our systems, our styles, our markets, and well … basically most things other than the fact that we were both raising pigs and both of us were genuinely interested in doing the best job that we could.

In the end though the biggest thing that I walked away with from that conversation (we ended up grabbing a different Suburban … a 9 passenger instead of an 8) is that if raised hogs in the same way that gentleman did I would feel like I was missing something. I’m not really talking about all the differences of our farming methods, rather the interaction with our amazing farm supporters! Being able to talk with the people that are purchasing, preparing, sharing, and eating our pork is one of the main reasons we farm the way we do.

That was a long post to say this … keep track of the good things that keep you going!